


Love Me Tender

by Grubbutts



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Background Relationships, College, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Guardiancest, M/M, Minor John Egbert/Karkat Vantas, Slow Burn, Stridercest - Freeform, calliope/roxy lalonde - Freeform, cliches up the wazhoo, im talking broiling this bitch, tags are bein shifty but you get the idea, will update tags as i write
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 17:12:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14241996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grubbutts/pseuds/Grubbutts
Summary: Dirk and Dave find themselves taking on the challenge of paying for college by themselves. To save money on housing, they have the wonderful idea of pretending to be married. As expected, it doesn't go as planned.





	Love Me Tender

**Author's Note:**

> An exposition

Graduation. Everyone was looking forward to it but especially Dave. Finally, _finally_ , he and his twin were getting out of that hellhole of a high school. Now they get to do grown up shit and head on to college. But of course, first, there’s graduation.

Dave comes in first, bursting through the door to the apartment and immediately flinging off his graduation robe and cap, tossing them to the side. Dirk follows behind as do David and Bro. Dave collapses on the couch.

“2 months till college. How’s it feel to be a free man, Dirk?”

Dirk plops down beside him and behold, a righteous fist bump is made.

“Best damn feeling, bro.”

David is already ordering pizza when the twins turn on the tv, picking up their controllers to do some celebratory video gaming. Bro sits over by his desk, swiveling his chair around to watch and critique the boys’ so-called ‘nonexistent’ skills.

“Good luck trying to get a headshot that way, you couldn’t 360 no scope if your life depended on it.” He says, grinning as Dave gets riled up.

“Please, I’ll 360 no scope your ass to hell where it belongs.”

“Yeah doesn’t look like it so far dude,” Dirk comments as he offs Dave’s character.

“Shit.”

“You were saying?” Bro’s smarminess only makes Dave poutier and he crosses his arms, leaning back on the couch as he scoffs.

“Just a warm-up, you haven’t seen shit yet.”

They continue playing video games, Bro and Dirk ganging up on Dave with their teasing. David watches off to the side, ready for the pizzas when they arrive and bringing it to the others. Then he asks,

“You guys should start now figuring out what you’re going to take to college.”

“We have two months, we don’t need to start so early,” Dave replies, not taking his eyes off the tv.

“You don’t know how small those dorm rooms are though, not to mention where you’ll be living in the first place.”

Dave and Dirk look at each other for a moment and mull it over. They were excited to go to college, rushed through the bureaucratic bullshit to get to their end goal of acceptance. Bro interrupts their thoughts with something that will snowball into an entirely different kind of domino effect.

“You lil shits are lucky you’re getting your education and housing paid with movie money, porn and shitty irony alike. Your Bro and I had to make it all on our own.”

That set something off in Dave and Dirk who had the same exact idea in their minds at the same exact time. Challenges were never refused in the Strider household, and what Bro just said sure as hell sounded like a challenge. Dirk looks to Bro with a smirk.

“Wanna bet?”

“You gonna pay your own way through college?”

Dirk and Dave share a determined look and nod, whereas Bro and David share an incredulous one and burst out in laughter. Bro wipes an invisible tear as he speaks through his nefarious giggles.

“Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” Dave says.

“We can get jobs and shit, there’s federal aid and loans we can apply for,” Dirk replaces his controller with his phone, pulling up more information to figure out how they’re going to do this.

“Look we can pay for it, you don’t want student loans bogging you down after college. Trust me,” David advises.

“If you guys could do it, then we can do it better,” Dave is very confident about this and even preens a little. Dirk nods along in support.

Bro grins and snickers under his breath, “I can’t wait to see how y'all screw this up and how we'll have to pick up after you.”

Dave stands up quickly and thrusts his chin out, his arms crossed and a stern furrowing of his brows ever present. There’s no way he’ll let Bro get away with slander like that. “We’re going to do this thing despite your contentious ass and it’s going to be beautiful. I’m talking doves flying out of our jackets as we get our pens to sign those loans, bills being downright amatory to make our acquaintance that we can pay off no sweat. Isn’t that right, Dirk?”

“Right.”

Bro and David share a conversation of just looks with vague shrugs and eyebrow raises, pointing at the twins and mouthing words like ‘really?’ and ‘why not?’. David is the one who speaks before Bro can verbally object.

“If that’s what you two want, then there’s no way we can stop you. But I want you guys to have a plan on how you’re going to do this. Keep us updated or else we’re going to take over finances. Good deal?”

Dave and Dirk look at each other and smile with a nod before both saying, “Good deal.”

After that night, Dirk and Dave get to work sorting out the logistics of everything throughout the next two months. They polish up resumes, research payment plans, scour forums for ideas on saving money. There’s one idea in particular that sticks out to them, however, an idea that shapes the way they look at the rest of college.

“Dirk take a look at this,” Dave points to his computer screen as Dirk pads over, leaning behind the desk chair to get a better look. “Think you could hack something up for this?”

Dirk takes a moment to think about it. It’s a risky plan and if someone looks too hard at the paperwork it could all fall apart, but if it works... their housing would be all set. Better than set, practically ideal.

“You guys figure something out?” Bro pokes his head through the door. He’s been more or less eager to hear Dirk and Dave’s plans for this college thing for the potential schadenfreude of when it inevitably falls apart. But also, and not that he would ever admit it, but he’s actually proud of how determined and set the two boys are. Reminds him of himself at that age, stubborn and headstrong, enough to make tsunami level waves.

Dirk finally decides that yeah, they can definitely make this work. He turns around and answers Bro.

“We’re going to get married.” Dave grins.

“Married?” A single one of Bro’s eyebrows raises high enough to touch his hat.

“Yeah, apparently they have this family housing thing,” Dave reads off the website, “Married students have the opportunity to live in family apartments along with their children and pets. The apartment complex comes with washers and dryers on each floor, even some common spaces. Plus its a hell of a lot cheaper than regular housing for the two of us.”

Bro stares at the two of them for a solid minute, processing everything he’s hearing before he almost collapses with laughter. “There’s no fuckin way you guys are going to pull that off, I bet my life on it,” he tries to say between his gasps and wheezes.

Dave and Dirk look at each other; well that sure sounded like another challenge, no way they’re going to back away now. Dirk wraps his arm around Dave’s shoulders and glares at Bro. “My honey bunch and I say otherwise, isn’t that right sugar bear?”

“Damn right, love of my loins.”

“You two idiots aren’t going to be able to pretend a marriage for long, I guarantee it. Shit, this just keeps getting better and better,” Bro walks out of the room to gush about it to David, still choking on laughter, imagining how everything’s going to go wrong and sure enough Dirk and Dave will come crawling back with a deference most sweet.

Meanwhile, the twins get to work planning their college experience. They get their resumes in check, they get their loans approved. Dirk hacks together a marriage certificate for the two of them, and they get accepted into family housing.

And soon enough it’s moving day.


End file.
